Have you ever noticed that people
often buy exercise equipment, use
if for a few days or weeks, then
stop using it altogether and eventually
throw it away? Does that seem silly
to you? Well how about a company
with lots of expensive machines for
manufacturing something which has
its workers stop coming to work and
allows those machines to just sit
there and rust? Sounds expensive
and wasteful, doesn't it. Think next
of homeless families living in their
cars or in shacks they built of trash
while down the street there are houses
sitting empty and deteriorating because
no one is maintaining them. Another
of life's ironic tragedies.

Why do these things happen? Why
do people live in poverty while the
goods and services they so desperately
need are wasted or not produced at
all? Why is it that when millions
of people who have no work, who want
and need to work, who will take almost
any honest job that they can do well,
why are they not allowed to work,
to produce, to make all of us more
wealthy?

Surely you can answer those questions.
We all know the answers. It's because
no one is willing to pay those
people to work, to produce. It's because
those poor people cannot pay for
the things they need. We don't work
and we live in poverty because of
money and the way money is distributed.

But doing that is insane. We might
as well stop working because of the
pattern of tea leaves in the bottom
of the Queen of England's cup. We
might as well stop working because
of the shapes a diviner sees in the
entrails of a freshly slaughtered
sheep. We might as well stop working
because of the planet Jupiter being
somewhat in line with Mars.

We have the raw materials. We
have the tools to process
those materials. We have the skilled
laborers to use
those tools. We have the transport to
bring those goods swiftly to market.
We have eager customers wanting
to consume what we could manufacture.
We have everything we need except...
well, except that people do not
think they will be paid for doing
those
things. People do not think they
have money to buy those things they
would like to have. It's all in our
minds. It's a form of social insanity
and it's all in our minds.

What distinguishes a piece of paper
which is worthless from a piece of
paper which is worth lots of money?
The distinguishing features are in
our
minds. It is what we know about those
pieces of paper that allows one to
be actual money and the other, which
may look strikingly similar, to be
just a piece of paper. What is it
about certain electronic patterns
in the memory of a computer which
makes the one pattern money and the
other pattern just random bits? The
distinguishing features are all in
our minds. It's a mental thing.

Why do we think about things this
way? Why do we let this figment of
our imagination, this dream, this
concept, this set of beliefs, so
dominate our lives and give us so
much misery? Mostly we do so because
we don't know any better. Mostly
we do so because that's what
everybody else is doing. That's just the way
we think about things. That is how
we were trained.

But do we have to continue to
act this way? Does the insanity have
to continue? Are we doomed to proceed
down this path of suffering and want
just because we don't know any better,
just because our parents and grandparents
and so forth back through
history for thousands of years trod
that same path to their eternal regret?

Well, no. We don't have
to. We could choose to do otherwise.
We could
learn and invent new ways and change
our bleak future into a brilliant
tomorrow. Because, after all, it
is all in our minds. It isn't as
if there were some physical barrier
that walled us off from prosperity.
It isn't as if there were some physical
constant like the speed of light
or the force of gravity that was
preventing us from producing. It's
what we know, or what we think we
know. We can change what we think.
We can increase what we know. We
can overcome ignorance. We really
can. Because there really is a better
way. There actually is a way to change
our money so that "money is
no object," so that money doesn't
make us stop working or stop using
perfectly good shelter or not take
care of the sick. There actually
is a way which doesn't cost anybody
anything.

Yes, I know, you're thinking that
somebody has to pay, that everyone
else can benefit at your expense,
that the only way to win is to defeat
someone else, that goods are scarce
and there aren't enough to go around.
But remember, goods are only
scarce because we stop producing
them, not
because there is an upper limit to
goods. Remember that just because
you win doesn't mean that anyone
else has to lose. Remember that the
best things in life are free, or
could be.

Are you ready to live a better life?
Are you still capable of learning?
Are you able to change your mind
about things that seemed certainties
in the past? If you are ready, if
you are capable, if you are able,
but most of all if you are willing
to do something about it all, then
start now. Read Invisible
Hand. Learn
why we are suffering this social
insanity. Learn exactly how it comes
about. Learn that it is not necessary
that we live this way. Learn the
single change we can make that will
solve all these problems and more.
Read Invisible
Hand and learn.